Hunting for your own puffer food sources

[sgtmyers88]

Okay today I spent 3 hours digging around in a secluded creek that was a few miles from town and got roughly about 50 small crayfish and a couple dozen pea sized pond snails. Many of the snails had egg sacs attached to them. Looks like I am gonna have some very fat and happy puffers for a while.

Oh yeah I even found some freshwater clams.

It was nice to revisit an old childhood hobby. I have not done something like this in years. Sometimes when I went fishing I used to catch small sunfish and catfish and put them in an aquarium.

[Nuclear_Glitter]

QT everything of course before feeding =]

I wish I could find stuff like this. I am going to start trying harder I think.

[sgtmyers88]

I wonder, what medication is safe for using with food crustaceans? All the stuff I have says do not treat them with it.

[Nuclear_Glitter]

What are you trying to treat?

If you just QT them for 8 weeks or longer things generally are okay.

[sgtmyers88]

Whoops I had only QT for a week or two in the past. And I was just talking about basic disinfection of the feeders.

[sgtmyers88]

I also saw a school of these sunfish, these were the same ones I used to catch and keep in an aquarium as a kid. I am surprised that people do not try to put these in the aquarium trade dubbed as North American Cichlids or something. lol

They do look a lot like Jack Dempseys or even Firemouth Cichlids IMO

They are such a pretty fish and don't get huge unlike the popular Oscar Cichlids. The largest I have ever seen one of these get was about 7 inches.

[Nuclear_Glitter]

Very pretty fish indeed.

Most people only QT for a week or two, but IMO that just isn't long enough; especially when they're originally wild.

Really if you are to QT for 8 weeks or more you don't need to add medicine for disinfection. Just doing water changes and keeping everything in the QT good helps get rid of any nasties.